Aventina Two

“Eteria, my life,

Eteria, my wife,

Eteria, my knife,

Oh how cruel must you be to depart us,

Unsung sons of your image.

When you left we followed lust,

In hopes that it pay homage,

To your wonderful face.

It was not done in haste,

But in our own pace,

In order to find the taste,

That is our defining ways.”

Etespo Algos, Basilian poet, 3000EC.

The moon was not brightest it could have been, but Aventina did not mind. She had a long way home and that was the only thought in her mind.

As Aventina stepped off the boat and onto the sand. Splashes of water wet her legs. Before she took a step, a howl resonated in the air. A moment later, one howl became two, and the two became four. Aventina's back shivered. She was in the easternmost parts of her father's land. There were less people in it due to the giant wolves that roamed around. Her father had said that whenever he wanted a new coat, he would head to the east and punch a giant wolf in the head.

When Aventina tried to get the specifics of how her father would face a wolf stronger than him, her father admitted to using a spear at first to weaken the wolf. Her father would aim at the wolf's face and not at the body where the fur would be damaged. Aventina had been taught that wolves hunted in groups like her tribe, and so she tried asking her father what he did to the wolf's reinforcements.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Her father had brushed her away. Told her to get out of the throne room and to play with her dolls. "These are actually not fit for a woman's mind," her father would say. She would agree for a moment.

Aventina unsheathed her knife and looked above. Her star sign was nowhere to be seen. She frowned. Although she hunted with her brothers and knew how to find animal tracks, she still had no experience with actual directions. She recalled her father's mention of a northern star and how it was brighter than most other stars. Aventina saw that all of the stars were equal in brightness. Not one was brighter than the other. Aventina shook her head. She had landed in the shore unfamiliar to where they had left earlier in the morning. It was maybe several hundred steps to the north or south, or maybe it would take half a day for her to familiar territory. Her father's territory was vast, but it was not borderless. She may enter a different chief's lands and be taken captive if she did not find her footing.

"If only my brothers," Aventina began before she dropped on the sand. Torrents of tears that were less salty than the water they flowed into had only stopped dripping once Aventina felt the wind weaken her.

Aventina stood up and wiped the tears off her face. She took a deep breath before moving her feet forward.

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2016-06-17: I think this is incomplete, too short.